Feeling Reality (General)

by dhw, Friday, March 18, 2011, 16:43 (4808 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID (under Origin of Life): New studies by the Raman specrometer show that 3.5 byo 'bacterial fossils' are nothing but mineral deposits in the rocks from Australia. The Greenland rocks' 'fossil bacteria' are also under dispute. Life may be only 2 byo on Earth.-http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-overturns-oldest-evidence-life-earth.html-DAVID: Here is a synopsis of a book that doubts that we can ever truly know our reality, and offers good reasons:-Lawless but not flawless
It must be a temptation, after retiring as a physicist, to go beyond one's research specialism and write a book outlining your "philosophy" of science and the scientific method. The latest offering in that mould is Lawless Universe by Joe Rosen who was, until retirement, a theorist at the universities of Tel Aviv and Central Arkansas with a particular interest in symmetry. After ploughing through the nature of science, theory and the difference between objectivity and subjectivity, Rosen then comes to the meat of the matter ... his view that science, despite its successes, can only explain part of what the universe is about. So cosmology, for example, is metaphysics, not science, because we cannot run reproducible experiments on new universes; cosmology lets us describe the universe, but not explain it. Moreover, as quantum theory cannot be a literal description of objective reality, then, in Rosen's view, objective reality must be mostly hidden from us. Reality, in other words, transcends nature and surpasses human understanding. Quite how scientific laws can then exist in an intrinsically orderless universe is a bit unclear, but Rosen is a genial enough guide through some mind-bending stuff. 
• 2010 Johns Hopkins University Press £39.00/$75.00 hb £15.50/$30.00 pb 184pp-My thanks to David for two more eye-opening posts. I've put them together, because not only do they seem to me to illustrate what may well be the insurmountable limitations of science, but the first post also sounds a warning signal to anyone tempted to think that today's scientific orthodoxy can be trusted. The conventional counter to that is that science is good at correcting itself, but how much trust can you put in the corrected version? David asks if Rosen is being too pessimistic? I don't think so. But if we did crack all the codes, what on earth would our scientists, philosophers and theologians do with themselves? (And for those who believe in a non-physical afterlife, what in hell/heaven would ANY of us do with ourselves?)